Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There's something in life that's cool, it's relatively cheap, and fun, and populist. Even when it's elitist.
Usually [the lyrics] go from one word to the next word - there's no finish line. The music was that way, too.
I think it's just entertainment for people that are interested in the form. To sing along to and be psyched by.
I just imagine that every song in and of itself is great, but when you add them all up, it's too much of me maybe.
If a voice is just too nice, without an edge, it kinda all flows by. You forget it. You don't listen to the lyrics.
Besides, going on tour and playing songs and arranging things, going to practice, it's all I know to be productive.
If you have no shame, and it’s your goal to get people into bed, how much higher could your success rate possibly be?
We [ Paverment] were definitely unafraid of playing wrong notes and singing wrong things. We could be fearlessly bad!
Family is the best. I can honestly say, it's a gift that is beyond making art. I didn't know that when I got into it.
Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be.
Freddie Gray was a story I followed closer than others, for whatever reason, in this larger narrative of police brutality.
So much of rock lyrics is just a mirror of real feeling. It doesn't feel dangerous to me. They just feel like "rock lyrics."
I don't know if you look back on your life and just see successes, but probably the first things that pop up are the regrets.
I don't really know where the songs are coming from often. Many of the best things I made up were just off the top of my head.
I guess the majority of people who want to ban certain musicians are the ones who are so proud of everything America stands for.
I did some writing. I was just taking the kids to school. I did a couple things and we did some tours. It was a lot of downtime.
When you get older, you have to wrestle with what's appropriate behavior a little bit more. Am I not acting too old or too young?
I would be happy to produce groups, like John Cale - he was in the Velvet Underground, and then he went on to produce these bands.
I'm better when I'm an autodidact and things just come. Or you're just blessed. I'm not bragging or anything, it just comes to you.
I am good at just looking in the kitchen and getting stuff on the table and keeping the mess minimal. There's an art to the drudgery.
The best I do, if I'm just playing around and riffing in a fantasy world, and then I'll write something down. Hopefully I write it down.
Despite my own doubts of being marketable or crushworthy, my goal was to write a record of peppy pop songs, hopefully without annoying anybody.
Something taken off the page can sound great, I guess. Usually it doesn't. It seems like lately Pitchfork is trying to champion lyric writers more.
You don't realize that when you're young, and you're surprised there's a lot of people at your gig - you just think it's general British-press hype.
Оur music, it's an acquired taste. It's almost cult, even at our level. It can mean nothing to somebody and it can mean everything to somebody else.
George Oppen wasn't a larger than life personality, but I'm not either. And he lived a long time, so he was happy. Going down in flames is fine, too.
We were delighted to have Nigel as a producer. The only problem is that Nigel is so famous that he seems to dominate most interviews without being there.
Lou Reed is something like a personal favorite of mine, but you could always put me into that drawer of singers who can't really sing, who speak their songs.
We're probably a couple of freaks who've created their own little universe, are living in our own little world and that's the only place where we can survive.
It's normally in the morning, just playing around. And I'm not saying everything I make is great, but that's what I do. I can't even remember how I wrote stuff.
But, then again, I wouldn't call myself an indie-rock supporter even if there are some really good bands out there and there will always be some real good new bands.
I wouldn't say that 'Wowee Zowee' was a success. We probably had a chance, had I focused a little more, to capitalize on the attention the band got for 'Crooked Rain.'
With some songs, I have written narratives or I've tried to carry it through, but generally the things that were more genius, as far as I was concerned, were not that.
I'm not saying I look at those pictures all the time and think, 'Wow, I was hot.' Just, you know, I think everybody deserves to be objectified at least once in their life.
But we're still rehearsing and planning to make a new album next year. We have some really good new songs that we've already been playing on that last tour that we just finished.
When I see four young kids in a band, I think, That looks really fun, no matter how shitty they are. You develop your own thing, and get excited about your band name. It's all so harmless.
If you'd rather learn how to ride a horse or something, I would say do that. That'll keep you out of trouble. You would think a band would get you in trouble, but I think it's the opposite.
Pop music catches on like a meme. It just takes a little bit of tinder, and it can become a phenomenon. You have to break through that wall a little bit. Why it happens, I don't really know.
I've wanted to not play as much. I would like to just sing now. Even though I don't think I'm a great singer, I wouldn't mind just - not being a frontman, per se, but singing and not playing.
When I was a kid I really liked the guitarist of The Doors [Robby Krieger]. He plays blues, but he plays a lot of melodic things. He plays scales that are kind of unusual, and some bent notes.
I'm not sure if you can blame everything on the American way of life, but the United States are big. So, if you have a lot of people there, the percentage of stupid people is bound to be higher.
There's no reason to stop. Who knows what's around the bend? To participate, meet new people. It's mostly other musicians and people like you, or anybody I meet who's in this, that keeps me going.
You know, the songs that are self-conscious or jerky, they are that way, but the other ones aren't, so that's a good thing. Some of the songs are Beck-jokey, but the others, they have heart in them.
If I watch a basketball game, I don't really care if a guy hit a three-pointer with three seconds left. I mean, I can like that. But I'm more interested in who drafted him and what makes him special.
The narrative songs were well-written, like an article in The New Yorker. They're nice and pat. They're more like I'm just showing I can do that when I write a song like that. It's not my true calling.
I want to do some different kind of songs, but say I want to do riffs, but I don't come up with any riffs that I really think are great. Then I can't do a riff album. I'm more of a song, melody person.
What I love about music, when you can look at something and be like, "Wow, what's this all about?" You can't really picture what these people look like - is it one guy, or a band making music in a garage?
My wife is a big fan of George Oppen and I got into him. I could have a career like his. It's not an alpha male situation, George Oppen. It's quiet. It's poetry.He just lived a life of an intellectual poet.
If you want to be negative about the whole thing you can say all guitar bands after the Beatles were just a waste of time because the Beatles were the best. I think it's far better to give new records a try.
I think the focus of the media changes. At the moment the more electronic stuff like trip-hop was the flavor of the month, just a little while ago. It all depends on the angle, from which point of view you see it.